1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an apparatus and a method of moving a shift lever.
2. Description of the Related Art
An automotive transmission system may change a gear ratio in order to constantly maintain the rotation of an engine depending on the speed of a vehicle. A driver may operate a shift lever provided in a transmission in order to change a gear ratio of the transmission.
As shift modes of the automotive transmission system, there are a manual shift mode in which the driver can manually change a shift stage, and an automatic shift mode in which the shift stage is automatically changed according to the speed of a vehicle.
In addition, a sports mode transmission system capable of performing a manual shift operation and an automatic shift operation in a transmission system has been used. In the sports mode transmission system, basically, while performing the automatic shift operation, the gear position may be changed by the driver to perform the manual shift operation, or an automatic transmission may be provided next to a manual transmission.
The automotive transmission system includes a shift lever such that the driver can change a shift mode or shift stage. Conventionally, the shift lever directly transmits an operation force applied by the driver to the transmission through a mechanical mechanism to change a shift mode or shift stage. However, recently, in order to eliminate inconvenience that occurs because the driver has to directly apply a certain amount of force required for changing a shift stage, there has been used an electronic transmission system in which the shift lever is operated in a predetermined direction by a displacement amount with only little operational force to change a shift mode or shift stage.
The electronic transmission system performs the shift control by using an electrically operated actuator, an electronic shift lever and the like instead of a mechanical connection structure of the transmission and the shift lever. In the electronic transmission system, operation feeling of the shift lever is excellent, and it is possible to reduce abrasion or noise by achieving a shift operation through a simple configuration.
The electronic transmission system has a function of automatically moving the shift lever to N stage or D stage in order to prevent confusion from occurring when the driver drives the vehicle again later if a predetermined moving condition (e.g., driver turns off the ignition while M stage is selected) is satisfied.
The movement of the shift lever may be performed by applying a pressure to one side of the shift lever through an actuator or the like when the vehicle is turned off. If the actuator is stopped during or after the movement of the shift lever due to abrasion or corrosion of the components included in the actuator, the normal movement of the shift lever or the selection of the shift stage may be hindered. Accordingly, there is need for a method of preventing a stoppage that may occur when moving the shift lever.